Lessons Learned Paper from five years of Mobile Data Collection at Terre des hommes

This resource was originally published on the CartoBlog and on the mdc-toolkit website in 2019 by CartONG. It was transferred to the IM Resource Portal in May 2021. The CartoBlog will be decommissioned in early 2022.

In the spirit of sharing resources to help build capacity within the sector, CartONG and Terre des hommes (Tdh) have released a lesson learned paper on Mobile Data Collection (MDC). Both organizations share a common vision on the importance of capacity and knowledge development in information management in the aid sector (and beyond). This is why continuous efforts have been made to publish as much as possible the work they produce to ensure others could make use of it - you may find a more exhaustive list at the bottom of this article.

Written by CartONG, this paper reflects on five years of experience gained by Terre des hommes implementing MDC projects in its countries of operation worldwide. Its principle aim is to help field operations make the best use of MDC in their programs by summarizing the key lessons learned throughout these 5 years of MDC roll-out. It builds both on the institutional knowledge acquired over the years as well as on the experiences shared by three delegations (Iraq, Mali and Nepal) - deliberately different in terms of size, volume of operations, and types of interventions.

This Lessons Learned paper also summarizes the path taken by the organization to scale up MDC over the years and the uses to which MDC is put, both by Tdh and by the wider humanitarian community. Lastly, it also details both Tdh and CartONG's vision for MDC in the coming years.